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Topic: Distribution System Operators

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[Episode #279] – Debottlenecking Europe’s Grid

Jul 1 2026

Right now, Great Britain has more than enough new solar projects waiting to be connected to its distribution grid to meet its 2030 renewable energy target.

Italy and Poland could reach half their 2030 solar targets just by connecting the solar already sitting in their queues.

Across just eight European countries, there's a whopping 375 GW of wind and solar PV projects, and an even larger 455 GW of battery storage projects, just languishing in connection queues. Together, these wind, solar and battery resources are roughly equivalent to the entire generation capacity of those countries.

These are the shocking findings from a new study commissioned by the European climate nonprofit Beyond Fossil Fuels. Its estimates are deliberately conservative: the study values the trapped clean energy projects at around €100 billion, with the real total almost certainly higher. In this episode, we welcome Tara Connolly, their Programme Lead for Energy Markets and Grids, to share what the report found and learn what can be done about this sad state of affairs.

And the crunch isn't only on the supply side. Data centers are now muscling to the front of the same queues. In Ireland, they already consume half of greater Dublin's electricity, while households' EV chargers, rooftop solar, and home batteries wait behind them.

It will not surprise our longtime listeners at all to learn that unlocking all this mostly comes down to regulation, with many of the fixes already on the books, just not enforced.

Guest:

Tara Connolly is Programme Lead for Energy Markets and Grids with the NGO Beyond Fossil Fuels, where she leads work on delivering the grids and market rules necessary to phase out fossil fuels and ramp up renewables and clean flexibility. She has almost 15 years of experience in EU energy policy and campaigns, and has worked in the past for Greenpeace, Friends of the Earth and Global Witness.

On Bluesky: @taraconnolly.bsky.social

On LinkedIn: @tara-connolly-EU

On the Web: https://beyondfossilfuels.org/

Geek rating: 7

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[Episode #263] – The Role of Distribution Utilities

Nov 19 2025

Mini Episode

What is the role of distribution utilities in the energy transition?

Consider this paradox: Marc England, CEO of Australian distribution utility Ausgrid, has two batteries at his home but no solar panels. Instead, he buys grid power at 5 cents per kilowatt-hour during midday solar surplus, stores it, and then sells it back to the grid when prices are high, sometimes making $100 profit in a single day. Similarly, over 100,000 customers in Australia have installed batteries in their homes under a federal incentive program in just the past three months. But commercial players aren't building battery arrays on his network, despite slashing connection charges. And every time he flies into Sydney, he sees miles of empty warehouse rooftops that could host far more solar capacity if tariffs and other regulatory structures were reformed.

These market dislocations are part of an ongoing debate about who should build and own distributed energy assets (DERs). Should distribution utilities do it in order to maximize their integration? Or should they primarily provide a platform for consumer-owned DERs to connect and transact on an equal footing with utility-scale systems? Is it more practical and cost-effective for distribution utilities to build assets like battery storage systems and public EV chargers, especially where private-sector companies are not, or would it be cheaper and faster to maximize customer investment and rebuild the grid from the bottom-up?

For this conversation, Chris traveled to Sydney, Australia to debate these questions with Marc England in person. As Chris discussed with grid expert Lorenzo Kristov in Episode #205 and our Australia 2024 miniseries, there's no perfect answer, but these market structure questions will partly determine the speed of our response to climate change.

Guest:

Marc England is CEO of Ausgrid, Australia’s largest electricity network, based in New South Wales.

Marc joined Ausgrid as CEO in 2023, bringing a wealth of global experience spanning the energy, oil and gas and automotive industries.

Throughout his career, Marc has held a number of executive positions. Prior to joining Ausgrid, Marc was the CEO of Genesis Energy in New Zealand, delivering significant transformation and growth to a business that was at the forefront of the energy transition.

Marc also held Executive roles at AGL Energy where he was responsible for the establishment of the company’s New Energy Arm to deliver distributed energy resources to customers. Prior to that, Marc spent six years at British Gas in a range of leadership roles driving impactful commercial and operational outcomes.

On LinkedIn: linkedin.com/in/marc-england-9147711

On the Web: Ausgrid.com.au

Geek rating: 3

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[Episode #128] – Energy Basics Parts 7–9 – The Electricity Business and Power Markets

Aug 19 2020

Mini Episode

This episode is part of our Energy Basics mini-series. Parts 1-3 of the series can be found in Episode #119, and Parts 4-6 can be found in Episode #126.

If you have found yourself occasionally challenged to follow some of the more technical conversations we have here, or even if you just want to brush up on the fundamentals, this mini-series is for you! We hope these episodes will give you a bit more familiarity with the terms and concepts of energy, and help to fill in some of the knowledge that you were never offered in school.

Each of these three mini-episodes are about 20 minutes in length. Part 7 is available to all listeners. Parts 8 and 9 are available to full subscribers only. You can jump between each part using the chapter functionality in your podcast app.

Episode 128.1 - Energy Basics Part 7 – The Electricity Industry – The evolution of electric utilities; state regulation of utilities; utility restructuring. [00:00 to 30:19]

Episode 128.2 - Energy Basics Part 8 – Electric Utilities Today – The various kinds of electric utilities today; governance; relationship between transmission and distribution utilities. [30:20 to 59:06]

Episode 128.3 – Energy Basics Part 9 – Power Markets and Grid Balancing – How wholesale power markets work; introduction to retail electricity markets; how transmission and distribution grid operators keep supply and demand in balance. [59:07 to 1:26:34]

Geek rating: 1

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[Episode #126] – Energy Basics Parts 4–6 – Electricity, Generation and Grid Management

Jul 22 2020

Mini Episode

This is part of our mini-series on the Energy Basics. Parts 1-3 can be found in Episode #119.

Each of these three mini-episodes are about 20 minutes in length. Part 4 is available to all listeners. Parts 5 and 6 are available to full subscribers only. You can jump between each part using the chapter functionality in your podcast app.

Episode 126.1 - Energy Basics Part 4 – Basics of Electricity – What electricity is; electricity units; Volts and amps; AC and DC. [00:00 to 23:51]

Episode 126.2 - Energy Basics Part 5 – Electricity Generation – How various kinds of electricity generators and power stations work. [23:52 to 55:53]

Episode 126.3 – Energy Basics Part 6 – Grid Management – How the electricity transmission and distribution systems are structured and managed. [55:54 to 1:24:54]

Geek rating: 1

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[Episode #94] – Integrated Decentralized Power Systems

May 1 2019

Mini Episode

As more distributed energy resources arrive unbidden onto the power grid, they are increasingly requiring us not to just think about new utility business models, but to radically rethink what a utility might look like. What if millions of distributed resources become the dominant resources, and the grid assumes a subordinate role as a residual supplier of energy? What if the control of the system is also decentralized, through the actions of millions of devices? What if the roles of transmission system operators and the distribution system are diminished as their responsibilities are distributed across all those devices? And how will utilities, power market operators, regulators, legislators, and local officials deal with a radical shift in their roles and responsibilities? These are the questions that our guest in this episode—an 18-year veteran of wholesale power market design at the California ISO—thinks about, and he shares those deep thoughts with us in this wonky yet heady discussion.

Geek rating: 9

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